


Too Many Mornings

by Trivialqueen



Category: Extreme Ghostbusters (Cartoon), Ghostbusters - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Follies, Inspired by Sondheim, but eventually fluffy, kinda angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 09:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17281553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trivialqueen/pseuds/Trivialqueen
Summary: An XGB Songfic inspired by Steven Sondheim..."Too many mornings wasted in pretending I reach for you. Thousands of mornings dreaming of my girl. All that time wasted merely passing through, time I could have spent, so content, wasting time with you"...





	Too Many Mornings

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Ghostbusters, otherwise Real/Extreme Ghostbusters would have been very different. Too Many Mornings, from Follies by Steven Sondheim. 
> 
> I highly recommend the Nathan Gunn and Audra McDonald duet performed at Sondheim: The Birthday Concert in 2010. Gunn’s voice is what I imagine if Cartoon Egon could/would sing. This is most likely extremely out of character but the song wouldn’t leave me alone, so I wrote it. This is perhaps the first or second time I’ve ever written Cartoon!Egon, I apologize in advance.

“I’m not late, am I professor?”

It couldn’t be.

This was not the first time he had heard _her_ voice in the intervening years. However, usually the slight audio hallucination just repeated words of the past. _Good-bye_. It had learned new lines to torture him.

And then he turned. Janine was standing at the door. Never, outside of his home had he visually hallucinated her before. She looked different, too. Not the ghost of a woman six years ago, his mind conjured to play tricks on him in his darkest nights. She was not carrying his child nor parading about in just his shirt, nor in the yellow blouse she wore so often.

“Janine.” He could barely speak. How many mornings? Too many mornings he’d spent waking and pretended he reached for her. Thousands of mornings dreaming of her. He’d ruined them, dashed both their hearts against the rocks because of his own failings. He was not enough, he’d never be enough. She deserved so much better but oh, how he wished. He was merely passing through, wasting time without her.

_Fool! Had you been without fear the past six years could have been time you could have spent, content, with her!_

_Fear? Hardly fear, just the simple truth that I can only hurt her. I will never make her as happy as she deserves._  He needed to speak before the voices in his head became too much.

“Class, this is Janine Melnitz, she was the Ghostbusters’ secretary and ran our day to day operations.” Her face fell, almost imperceptibly, but he had dedicated his adult life to reading her beautiful features and he was keenly aware of all the ways he hurt her.

“Now, Egon, I’d like to think our relationship was a little more than that.”

It was amazing she didn’t leave. But then Janine Melnitz never left him, at least never by choice, even when she really ought to have. He would always hurt her in the end.

Janine walked to her car after class, intently focusing on her breathing. It was either that or crying and she’d cried enough tears over Egon Spengler to flood Manhattan. _Stupid girl_. She chided herself. _You knew this was how it’d play out. _But oh, how she’d planned – what she’d wear and when she should arrive, where she’d stand and what she’d say.

_Was it ever real? Did I ever love you this much? Did we ever feel so happy then?_

She had memories - hazy, wonderful memories. Him holding her in his arms as the sun rose. _Janine, I love you._ She had been happy – they had been happy. She was sure of it. Except present reality made her doubt her senses.

“I should have worn green,” she lamented to no one, “I wore green the last time…”

X

He would always hurt her. He could never be what she needed. He was not enough. And now his own deficiencies were costing her her very humanity – again. If it wasn’t for trying to save her life Egon wanted to die. He could barely look at himself after they’d nearly lost her the first time – the pier. He’d made a vow to himself that night that he would always protect her. And yet time and again by his own hand he wounded her.

“Tell her you love her!” Kylie yelled at him. It was enough to pull him out of his self-loathing.

“Janine! I love you!”

“You’re too late! She will become my Queen!”

“No! Janine, I have spent too many mornings wishing that the room might be filled with you. Morning to morning, turning into days. All the days that I thought would never end… all the nights… with another day to spend…” He took a step closer, it was hard to look at her, mostly transformed into an insectoid but it was impossible to look always. This was it this ended now. He’d loved her since he’d first met her but denied himself the ability to love. He had nearly lost her before, he was willing to admit the truth. He’d pushed her way thinking it was for the best, that he knew better than she, better than his heart.  She’d returned all the same and he still loved her with every beat of his heart. They had wasted – **he** had wasted so much time. No more.

Before he could say more he was thrown aside, Cohila impatient for the final transformation. What happened next was agonizingly slow and almost too quick to process. Janine returned to the demon’s side… and opened the trap she must have picked up while he was monologuing. Cohila and his army were sucked in, in a vortex of vermin and an unholy scuttling sound ringing in his ears.

Janine’s face soon returned, looking paler than it should and without her glasses. He was so relieved he didn’t even notice that she was naked. Edwardo was the first to recover and bring Janine something to cover with beside her limbs and the trap, like some paranormal playboy poster.

And suddenly they were alone. The kids silently disappearing, taking the trap back to the car. Leaving the two adults to figure out what comes after a confession of love a decade overdue. They don’t speak while she wraps herself in his jumpsuit, significantly less exposed than in just the vest. Only emotionally bare and vulnerable.

“There wasn’t a day when I didn’t look up and see you.” It was to jarring to speak above a whisper. “Janine…standing at the door… you moving to the bed,” he folded her into his embrace and thanked a God he was only agnostic about that he was able to do so after so long. “You resting in my arms, with your head against my head…”

“If you don’t kiss me, Egon, I think I’m going to die.”

X

The next morning Egon awoke to what had once been his dream. Janine dozed peacefully on the other side of the bed, his nightshirt loose over her slight frame, her features peaceful and relaxed. After so many mornings – too many mornings – of pretending he could reach for her… he finally did. He held her in his arms, her head against his head and the world finally felt as it should. He held her close until those blue eyes finally fluttered open. Being so close even he could see her, the light spreading in her gaze as she realized the moment was not a dream.

“Marry me.” He begged. He did not want another morning alone, pretending. They had already lost so much tie. He had cost them so much time.

“Do you promise to always wake me up like this?”

“I will try.” He’s nearly forty, there will only be so many mornings.

_Not much time?_ He can almost hear Janine reading his thoughts. _It’s time enough for me._

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. I have no excuses as to why I'm posting new material while Bell, Book, and Candle made it to the new year un-updated. I promise I'll try to keep my muse from further woolgathering and wondering (no promises). [1/2/19]


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